不懒不周末！最新赖床理由：周末补觉确实有益身体健康

忙碌了一周，终于能在周末睡个懒觉了!

As a night owl, I know what it’s like to struggle with the strict schedules society has set for us. Getting to bed to ensure eight hours of sleep is a daily battle, but it’s nothing compared with getting up in the morning to make it to work on time.

作为一个夜猫子，我知道在社会为我们设定的严格时间表里挣扎是什么滋味。虽然每晚确保8小时的睡眠，但与早上起床准时上班相比，这根本不值一提。

Throughout the week it can feel as though my body hasn’t rested enough because I often fail to fall asleep until very late. So I take the opportunity at weekends to catch up on my shut-eye — I rarely set an alarm and tend to wake up when my body wants to.

整个星期里，我感觉我的身体还没有休息好，因为我常常直到很晚才睡着。所以我在周末抓住机会来补上我的睡眠——那天我很少设置闹钟，睡一个自然醒。

Sleep scientists have long been critical of my method. One of them, Matthew Walker, said last year: "Sleep is not like the bank. You can’t accumulate a debt and pay it off at a later point in time."

睡眠科学家长期以来一直对我的方法持批评态度。其中一位名叫马修沃克的人去年曾说过：“睡眠不像银行贷款，没办法在后续的时间还清你之前积累的债务。”

But according to a study published on Tuesday in the Journal of Sleep Research, the effects of insufficient sleep over the week could actually be countered by a later lie-in at the weekend.

但是，根据周二发表在睡眠研究杂志上的一项研究表明，实际上睡眠不足带来的影响可以通过周末多睡一会来补偿。

Sleep researchers from the Stress Research Institute at Stockholm University looked at data from more than 43,000 adults collected in Sweden in 1997. They then checked the national death register to see what happened to participants over 13 years.

来自斯德哥尔摩大学压力研究所的睡眠研究人员查看了1997年在瑞典收集的43000多名成年人的数据。然后，他们检查了国家死亡登记册，看看13年来参与者的情况。

They found that adults under age 65 who got only five hours of sleep or less a night, for seven days a week, had a higher risk of early death than those who consistently got six or seven hours. But those who made up for it at the weekend by sleeping in had no raised mortality risk compared with the steady sleepers.

他们发现，那些每周7天只睡5个小时或更少的65岁以下的成年人早死的风险比那些每天睡6到7个小时的人要高。但是，那些在周末睡觉的人，与睡眠稳定的人相比，死亡的风险没有提高。

The results imply that short (weekday) sleep is not a risk factor for mortality if it is combined with a medium or long weekend sleep, said the researchers, led by Torbjorn Akerstedt. "This suggests that short weekday sleep may be compensated for during the weekend, and that this has implications for mortality."

“研究结果表明，如果在周末进行中度或者长时间的补觉，那么工作日的短时间睡眠并不是导致死亡的危险因素，”由托尔比约恩阿克斯蒂德领导的研究人员说。“这表明，周末适当补觉可以补偿平时工作日的缺觉，这是影响死亡率的一个因素。”

Overall, Akerstedt suggested that it was a person’s average amount of sleep that seemed to make a difference and that the new study adds to the growing body of research that highlights this.

总的来说，阿克斯蒂德认为，虽然每个人的平均睡眠时间似乎有所不同，但研究通过增加了越来越多的研究数据证明了这一点。

However, in the sleep-science community, the overarching advice is that consistency is key and that there is no substitute for having a regular sleep pattern.

然而，在睡眠科学领域最重要的建议仍然是保证睡眠规律，没有任何方法能够替代正常的睡眠模式。